Building on left demonstrates the current issue with excessive mechanical voids. Image Credit: NYC CPC

The proposal discourages clustering mechanical voids in a way that inflates building heights. On January 28, 2019, the CPC announced the beginning of public review of the proposed rezoning plan to limit the use of excessive voids that artificially inflate tower heights in residential buildings. Currently, these voids, or multiple floors of empty space, are not counted as zoning floor area in the Zoning Resolution.

Map of Sunset Park with the four proposed historic districts outlined in red. Image Credit: LPC.

Landmarks research staff spent several years researching the area, surveying and documenting over 4,000 buildings. On January 22, 2019, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted to add to its calendar four areas of Sunset Park, Brooklyn for historic district designation. The proposals were presented to the Commission following years of extensive survey and analysis by the Landmarks research staff after a request for evaluation of the area from Sunset Park’s Landmarks Committee in 2014. The Sunset Park Landmarks Committee was established in 2012 by area residents and homeowners who were concerned with redevelopment changing the largely rowhouse-character of the area. To read CityLand coverage on the Committee’s efforts in building community support for designation in its early stages, click here.

The shared-use building is expected to be completed in December 2020. On February 6, 2019, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer announced that HPD is joining Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc., Brooklyn Public Library, and New York State Homes and Community Renewal in bringing a new, first of its kind, shared-use model building to Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The eight-story building will house both Sunset Park’s new state-of-the-art public library and 49 deeply affordable apartments. The project was financed through $35.5 million in public and private investment.

Due to inclement weather, this event will be rescheduled to April 9, 2019. For more information, email nycitylaw@nyls.edu.

This evening, New York Law School is again hosting New Yorkers for Parks for another installment of their Open Space Dialogues. In tonight’s installment, titled Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, park advocates and practitioners from the City will discuss options on ensuring that parks have a sustainable financial future. The dialogues will focus on innovative funding strategies, learning lessons from cities with unusual funding streams for parks, and building an equitable approach to park funding in all neighborhoods. The event will begin at 6:30 PM. To watch the livestream, click here.

The new plans address many concerns that Landmarks and community members had with the previously approved plans. On January 8, 2018, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve new plans for a set of 20th century utilitarian buildings at 524-536 Halsey Street in the Bedford Stuyvesant/Expanded Stuyvesant Heights Historic District in Brooklyn. Both buildings were most recently used as garages. One building is a three-story Queen Anne style which the applicant proposes to rehabilitate and alter for residential uses. The other is currently a one-story garage that would be demolished and replaced with a four story building, also used for residences. The application came just one and a half years after Landmarks had approved the last owner’s plans for the buildings, despite opposition from area residents and the Community Board about the project’s scale and design. To read CityLand’s coverage of the hearings on the previous plans, click here.